Doctor's Appointment, Part 2

I talked to my parents today about the doctor’s appointment yesterday, the one with the radiologist. No, nothing was wrong (my head just likes to think of the worst possible scenarios). Here’s what’s going to be happening over the next few weeks:

There are a series of four appointments before she starts radiation, in the span of about three weeks. Her first appointment, the one that happened yesterday, was the intro appointment, the one that gives all the information, and collects all the information they need from us.

The second appointment is a CT scan, to make a 3D map of the brain. This will tell them where to irradiate – they’ll only be applying radiation to the portion of her brain, where the tumor was, and in decreasing amounts around the tumor. They’ll completely avoid areas of the brain that deal with hearing and vision, and other important things.

In the second appointment, they’ll also make a mold of my mom’s face. This mold will be what holds her head in place during the radiation treatments. They’ll basically place this thing over her face during each radiation, and bolt it to the table that she’ll lie on, so she doesn’t move her head, and so they don’t irradiate the wrong part of the brain.

The third appointment they’ll do an X-ray, with the mold and everything, to make sure that things are where they should be. If all goes well, and if there is enough time, she might be able to start her first radiation treatment at this appointment. But it all depends on time, and on whether she’s started her chemotherapy – she has to start the chemotherapy (in pill form, taken the night before) because it helps the radiation work better.

The fourth appointment is the radiation treatment, if it doesn’t happen at the third appointment. And then we’re off and running with 6 weeks of radiation (Mondays through Fridays), with chemo every day during those 6 weeks.